This is a continuation of a long topic, addressed by post number rather than by page. Start at post 1.
Reframing Promotion criteria slightly, because I think the disagreement is about the question rather than the answer. If the question is "does it happen", yes. If it is "how often", nobody here knows.
Second maintainers matter. A single maintainer is a single point of failure and every document here that went stale had one.
The interesting part of this is the exception, and I do not understand the exception.
Adding the measurement that post #92 says would settle it.
Something worth flagging about Promotion criteria: the strongest-sounding claims in this thread are the ones with no source attached, which is the usual pattern and not a coincidence.
Check the links. Promotion frequently breaks a cross-reference because the source topic now points at the document rather than the reverse.
The evidence for this is thinner than the way I have phrased it suggests.
Offering a way to settle Promotion criteria rather than another opinion about it. Two measurements, taken the same way, a fortnight apart. If the difference is within the noise, the question was not answerable at this precision.
Answering the question post #95 raises rather than the one it answers.
The documentation on Promotion criteria is better than this thread and I say that as someone who has posted in the thread.
The arithmetic in post #95 is right; the assumption feeding it is the part to check.
Where the review finds the content is right but the framing overstates it, that is the most valuable catch available at this stage.
The arithmetic on Promotion criteria is the easy part and it is where the errors are, which is an uncomfortable combination. Show your working and someone will catch it.
The most useful review comment names a sentence and says what is wrong with it. General approval and general concern are both hard to act on.
A weak preference rather than a position.
That is a fair summary of where the discussion has got to.
The honest answer on Promotion criteria is that it depends, and the useful part is the list of what it depends on. Four items, in rough order of how much they matter.
Most people get the first two right and then argue about the fourth.
Narrowing post #103, because the general version has more than one answer.
Worth stating the null on Promotion criteria before we explain it: the observation may be nothing. That possibility deserves a sentence and usually does not get one.
Where the review finds the content is right but the framing overstates it, that is the most valuable catch available at this stage.
That is where I would start, not where I would stop.
One more thing on Promotion criteria that took me far too long to see: the two figures people quote are not measuring the same quantity. Once you notice that, the apparent contradiction disappears.
I read post #103 twice before replying, because I had assumed the opposite.
The most useful reply I ever got about Promotion criteria was a request to state my units. It sounds like pedantry and it has saved me twice.
Post #107 answers the question as asked. The question underneath it is different.
Reviewing your own nomination is fine and is not sufficient. Somebody else has to read it for the process to mean anything.
Happy to be the one who is wrong here if it settles the question.
Adding what did not work for me on Promotion criteria, since the failures never get written up and they are half the useful information.
The most useful review comment names a sentence and says what is wrong with it. General approval and general concern are both hard to act on.
A promotion that is declined should leave the topic linked from wherever the question recurs, so the work is not lost.
Confirming post #110 from a second method, which matters more than confirming it from a second person.
Promotion criteria was covered in the wiki last year and the page has a review date on it, which is a better starting point than my memory of a thread.
I had written a reply contradicting post #112 and deleted it. Here is what survived.
Reading this Promotion criteria thread as someone who came in with a fixed view: the third and seventh replies moved me and the confident ones did not.
Where the review finds the content is right but the framing overstates it, that is the most valuable catch available at this stage.
That is all the detail I have. Someone else will have more.
Quietly grateful for the plain phrasing. Not every thread gets that.
Whatever the answer on Promotion criteria turns out to be, the method for getting there is the same: state the assumption, do the arithmetic in public, invite the correction.
Coming back to post #117, because the follow-up matters more than the original answer.
The version of Promotion criteria that I was taught turned out to be a teaching simplification. Useful, and not true in the way I had assumed it was.
Taking post #118 at face value and following it one step further.
The most useful review comment names a sentence and says what is wrong with it. General approval and general concern are both hard to act on.
The mechanism is plausible, which is not the same as established.